Obama Rebounds!

Democrats can come in off the ledge.  Left leaning bloggers can emerge from their basements and bask in the sunlight.  Barak Obama is back.

The president and his Republican challenger faced off in a spirited debate that was a mirror image of the debate held two weeks ago.  Mitt Romney was once again aggressive in his attacks against the president’s record; at one point offering a very effective litany of the promises candidate Obama failed to keep.  He was also compelling when addressing an audience member who stated that in spite of the president’s rhetoric to the contrary it didn’t feel like the economy was improving. 

The governor’s aggressiveness was at times what pundits refer to as “oft putting.”  There is a fine line between being aggressive and being arrogant.  Many believe that Romney crossed that line.  His condescending attitude toward the sitting president: “I’m still speaking”… you’ll get your turn” or “Let me give you some advice.” …didn’t go over well with many viewers.  And his attempts to bully the moderator were hard to watch.  Romney does not like to be challenged.  And when he is challenged he gets angry and petulant.  Tonight that showed.   

But unlike the first debate, the aggressive Mr. Romney ran into a president who was more than willing to fight back.  The president defended his record; laying out all the difficulties he encountered upon taking office and the steps he took repair them.  The president went after the governor on the accuracy of his attacks and his plans for the future; frequently admonishing the governor: “that’s not true.”  From our prospective the president won the argument on jobs, on taxes, on women’s health issues, on equal pay for equal work, on immigration, on entitlements the deficit and particularly on foreign policy.  But the president failed to lay a clear, concise plan for the future.  He gave us bits and pieces but didn’t do a very good job of pulling it all together.  That may haunt him in the future.

We thought that there were three memorable moments in this debate.

The first came when Romney intimated that the Obama administration may have attempted to cover up the attacks on the Libyan embassy for political purposes.  The president bristled at this notion, turned to face Romney, and with sheer anger in his eyes called Romney’s accusations “offensive.”   

The second was when Romney thought that he had caught the president in a lie regarding the attacks on the Libyan embassy.  The president, while recounting the events of the attack and taking responsibility for the incident, said he went to the Rose Garden the day after and called the event a terrorist attack.  Romney smelled blood in the water.  He believed that the administration had muddled their handling of the incident, covered up the fact that the embassy was a victim of a terrorist attack, and didn’t acknowledge that a terrorist attack had occurred until two weeks later.  Romney honed in on the president believing that he could score political points by catching the president in a lie. But moderator Candy Crowley set Romney back on his heels when she said that the president was in fact telling the truth about his Rose Garden address.

The final and most damaging to Romney came in the final two minutes of the debate.  The candidates were asked to use their final moments to correct any miss-conceptions that people might have about them.  Romney had managed to get through 85 minutes without having to explain his infamous “47% comment.”  Inexplicably Romney opened the door saying that he cared about 100% of the American people.  The president blew through the opening like a freight train.  The last thing people heard was the president using Romney’s own “47%” words to show how he really views about half of the country.  The effect was devastating. 

The president was the clear victor in this contest.  Both the CNN and CBS flash polls taken immediately after the debate show the president winning the debate by 7 points among undecided voters.  The presidents’ strong performance will not return him to the 5-6 point advantage he held before the first debate.  But it will stop the bleeding and energize his supporters.  New polling numbers will be out in 48 hours.  They will tell us what impact if any this evening’s events had on the race.

There is one thing that we don’t need the polls to tell us.  These two men not only do not like each other…they do not respect each other.  The sheer disdain that they have for each other was palpable tonight.  We can only expect that it will get worse as we draw closer to Election Day.    

These two men will meet again next week for one final debate.  The subject will be foreign policy; a topic that has proven to be quite difficult for Governor Romney.